View previous stories
	Council of Europe: Hold Serbia to Account by HRW / Agence France Presse / Reuters Serbia   Brussels, May 7, 2007   Council of Europe: Hold Serbia to Account. (Human Rights Watch)   The Council of Europe should require Serbia to turn over Ratko Mladic to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal as it takes on the chair of the council’s Committee of Ministers, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to that committee released today.   “Serbia is the only country ever judged to have violated the Genocide Convention, and it’s persisting in that violation by not turning over Ratko Mladic,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. “The Council of Europe, the ‘human rights conscience of the European Union,’ should insist that Serbia cooperates fully with the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.”   On February 26, 2007, the International Court of Justice ruled that Serbia breached its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by failing to prevent the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica, during which more than 7,000 Bosnian men and boys were killed, or punish those responsible. It further found that Serbia’s continuing failure to transfer Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) amounts to an ongoing violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention. Mladic, the wartime commander of Bosnian Serb forces, and the then Bosnian Serb president, Radovan Karadzic, were indicted for genocide by the ICTY. Mladic is believed to be hiding out in Serbia.   The primary aim of the Council of Europe, which has 46 member states, is to protect human rights and the rule of law. Its work is rooted in the European Convention on Human Rights. The chair of the council’s Committee of Ministers is held for a six-month term on a rotating basis in alphabetical order. Human Rights Watch believes governments holding the chair of the Council of Europe’s highest decision-making body should respect its aims, including by addressing any unfulfilled membership requirements.   Prior to being admitted to the Council of Europe in 2003, Serbia agreed to fulfill certain obligations, including full cooperation with the ICTY and to do “its utmost to track down all 16 indicted persons who are still at large and hand them over to the ICTY.” While Serbia assisted with the surrender of a series of less prominent suspects to the tribunal in 2004 and early 2005, its cooperation has since stalled. Recent Council of Europe monitoring reports deplore Serbia’s lack of commitment to arresting Mladic.   “For the Council of Europe to retain credibility as a human rights champion, it can’t abandon the victims of genocide in Bosnia,” said Dicker. “To demonstrate that impunity for war crimes is unacceptable, European leaders should require Serbia to immediately arrest and turn over the remaining fugitives.”   11.4.2007 (AFP)   Serbia"s war crimes court has jailed four former "Scorpions" paramilitaries for up to 20 years for their part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Muslims.   It was the first case in Serbia to deal with the notorious massacre in which 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed.   Judge Gordana Bozilovic-Petrovic said the four paramilitaries were guilty of a war crime against a civilian population in announcing the verdict on the charge of killing six Muslims.   The longest sentences of 20 years were given to former "Scorpions" commander Slobodan Medic and his main accomplice, Branislav Medic.   "(Slobodan) Medic ordered the three defendants and two others to execute the prisoners, take them away from the site and make it seem as if they had been killed in conflict," the judge said.   The massacre of Muslims in the UN-protected Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica is considered the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.   The men were charged after the release of a chilling video showing six Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica being shot dead in the village of Trnovo in July 1995.   In the footage, the Scorpions were seen taunting four Muslims, who were wearing plain clothes and had their hands tied behind their backs. They forced the four to lie face-down in a roadside ditch before shooting them in the back.   Prosecutors, who had sought maximum 40-year jail terms, and defence lawyers said they would contest the ruling. Serbia abolished the death penalty in 2001.   Outside the court, Serbia"s war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said the verdict would give families of the victims "partial satisfaction."   But Hana Fezlic, a Bosnian Muslim who lost children during the Srebrenica massacre, said "Serbia should be ashamed" of its legal system.   Human rights activist Natasa Kandic, whose organisation obtained the video and handed it over to the UN court, also criticised the verdict.   "The verdict neither brings justice to the defendants for what they have done, nor for the victims killed only because they were Bosnian (Muslims) from Srebrenica," said Kandic.   The verdict was slammed as "a political sentence" in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.   "Criminals were again awarded and victims were further victimised," Munira Subasic, the head of an association gathering mothers of massacre victims, told AFP.   The video of the shootings was shown in June 2005 during the war crimes trial of late Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which is based in The Hague.   The images shocked many Serbs who had questioned whether the Srebrenica massacre had really taken place.   The two men most wanted over Srebrenica, wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, remain at large more than 11 years since the ICTY indicted them for genocide in relation to the massacre. Many Serbs still consider them heroes.   The trial of those seen in the video began in November 2005, and 21 witnesses testified.   Serbia"s special war crimes court was established in 2003. It deals with lesser crimes referred to Serbia by the UN tribunal.   The Hague. April 5, 2007   War crimes tribunal sentences Serb Police Officer. (Reuters)   The U.N. war crimes tribunal on Wednesday sentenced former Bosnian Serb police officer Dragan Zelenovic to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to the rape and torture of Muslims during Bosnia-Herzegovina"s 1992-95 war.   Zelenovic, a 46-year-old former paramilitary leader, was indicted in 1996 in connection with atrocities committed against non-Serbs in his native Foca region, southeast of Sarajevo, including a gang rape of a 15-year-old girl.   After Serb forces took control of Foca, whose population at the time was 52% Muslim and 45% Serb, they unlawfully detained thousands of Muslims and Croats.   The United Nations court found Zelenovic guilty of personally committing nine rapes of women or girls in Serb detention, eight of which qualified as both torture and rape, and four of which were gang rapes.   "The victims at the detention centers in Foca suffered the unspeakable pain, indignity and humiliation of being repeatedly violated, without knowing whether they would survive the ordeal," Judge Alphons Orie said.   Last year, Zelenovic pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of rape and torture, but his defense team later reached a plea agreement with prosecutors under which he admitted committing some of the crimes.
	UN rights chief demands probe in Darfur rape cases by Louise Arbour Reuters   06 Apr 2007   The U.N. human rights chief on Friday demanded Sudan accept an independent investigation into reported rape and sexual violence during an attack by government forces and their militia allies in Darfur last December.   In the latest in a series of reports on violence in Sudan''s huge western region, the High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said the 15 victims of the incidents included a 13-year-old girl and two pregnant women.   "The High Commissioner is seriously concerned that rape and other sexual violence ... was used as a weapon of war to cause humiliation and instil fear," her office said in a statement.   An independent and impartial body, trusted by all sides and including women investigators, should be set up, its findings made public and those responsible brought to trial, the statement added.   The attacks were carried out in mid and late December in eastern Jebel Marra in central Darfur by "Sudanese government forces and allied militia", Arbour''s office said.   Khartoum denies responsibility and points the finger instead at rebel groups that refused a 2006 peace deal.   The United Nations says over 200,000 have died as a result of violence in Darfur since 2003 when a simmering ethnic conflict erupted into fighting, with the government''s militia allies blamed for some of the worst atrocities, including rape and murder.   In a separate report, Arbour also demanded that former rebel chief Minni Arcua Minnawi say what happened to 19 men detained by his forces last September in the Darfur town of Gereida and who have not been seen since.   Minnawi, whose Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) signed a peace deal with the government last May, is senior assistant to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with special responsibilities for Darfur.
	View more stories